BackgroundUsing an effective method for evaluating Institutional Review Board (IRB) performance is essential for ensuring an IRB’s effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance with applicable human research standards and organizational policies. Currently, no empirical research has yet been published in China evaluating IRB performance measures by the use of a standardized tool. This study was therefore conducted to develop a Chinese version of the IRB Researcher Assessment Tool (IRB-RAT), assess the psychometric properties of the Chinese version (IRB-RAT-CV), and validate the tool for (...) use in China.MethodsIn this cultural adaptation, cross-sectional validation study, the IRB-RAT-CV was developed through a back-translation process and then distributed to 587 IRB staff members and researchers in medical institutions and schools in Hunan Province that review biomedical and social-behavioral research. Data from the 470 valid questionnaires collected from participants was used to evaluate the reliability, content validity, and construct validity of the IRB-RAT-CV.ResultsParticipants’ ratings of their ideal and actual IRB as measured by the IRB-RAT-CV achieved Cronbach's alpha 0.989 and 0.992, Spearman-Brown coefficient 0.964 and 0.968, and item-total correlation values ranging from 0.631 to 0.886 and 0.743 to 0.910, respectively.ConclusionThe IRB-RAT-CV is a linguistically and culturally applicable tool for assessing the quality of IRBs in China. (shrink)

These books will prove valuable to philosophy teachers and their students as well as to other readers who share a general interest in philosophy.

In this book, Linda Wetzel examines the distinction between types and tokens and argues that types exist (as abstract objects, since they lack a unique ...

The distinction between a type and its tokens is a useful metaphysical distinction. In §1 it is explained what it is, and what it is not. Its importance and wide applicability in linguistics, philosophy, science and everyday life are briefly surveyed in §2. Whether types are universals is discussed in §3. §4 discusses some other suggestions for what types are, both generally and specifically. Is a type the sets of its tokens? What exactly is a word, a symphony, a species? (...) §5 asks what a token is. §6 considers the relation between types and their tokens. Do the type and all its tokens share the same properties? Must all the tokens be alike in some or all respects? §7 explains some problems for the view that types exist, and some problems for the view that they don't. §8 elucidates a distinction often confused with the type-token distinction, that between a type (or token) and an occurrence of it. It also discusses some problems that occurrences might be thought to give rise to, and one way to resolve them. (shrink)

Anthropologists have provided rich field descriptions of the norms and conventions governing behavior and interactions in small-scale societies. Here, we add a further dimension to this work by presenting hypothetical moral dilemmas involving harm, to a small-scale, agrarian Mayan population, with the specific goal of exploring the hypothesis that certain moral principles apply universally. We presented Mayan participants with moral dilemmas translated into their native language, Tseltal. Paralleling several studies carried out with educated subjects living in large-scale, developed nations, the (...) Mayan participants judged harms caused as the means to a greater good as more forbidden than harms caused as a side-effect (i.e., side-effect bias). However, unlike these other populations living in large-scale societies, as well as a more educated and less rural Mayan comparison group, the target rural Mayan participants did not judge actions causing harm as worse than omissions (i.e., omission bias). A series of probes targeting the action-omission distinction suggest that the absence of an omission bias among the rural Mayan participants was not due to difficulties comprehending the dilemmas, using the judgment scale, or in attributing a greater causal role for actions over omissions. Thus, while the moral distinction between means and side-effect may be more universal, the moral distinction between actions and omission appears to be open to greater cross-cultural variation. We discuss these results in light of issues concerning the role of biological constraints and cultural variation in moral decision-making, as well as the limitations of such experimental, cross-cultural research. (shrink)

While most business ethics texts focus exclusively on individual decision making--what should an individual do--this resource presents the whole business ethics story. Highly realistic, readable, and down-to-earth, it moves from the individual to the managerial to the organizational level, focusing on business ethics in an organizational context to promote an understanding of complex influences on behavior. The new Fifth Edition is the perfect text for students entering the workplace, those seeking to become professionals in training, communications, compliance, in addition to (...) chief ethics officers, corporate counsel, heads of human resources, and senior executives. (shrink)

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real (...) ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Abstract:This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethics-related attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for (...) respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culture-based dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. (shrink)

Lawami' al-Nazar fi Tahqiq Ma'ani al-Mukhtasar is Aḥmad b. Ya'qub al-Wallali's (d. 1128/1716) commentary on al-Sanusi's (d. 895/1490) compendium of logic, al-Mukhtasar. Al-Wallali was the first commentator on al-Sanusi's compendium after the author's autocommentary. In this publication, Ibrahim Safri offers a critical edition of this work, together with a study of the author's life and oeuvre. Safri also tries to show the indirect influence of Avicennism on logic in the Maghribi tradition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the basis (...) of his writings on logic and philosophical theology, al-Wallali was considered a master of rational sciences by his contemporaries. (shrink)

What is knowledge? Why do we want it? Is knowledge possible? How do we get it? What about other epistemic values like understanding and certainty? Why are so many epistemologists worried about luck? In ON EPISTEMOLOGY Linda Zagzebski situates epistemological questions within the broader framework of what we care about and why we care about it. Questions of value shape all of the above questions and explain some significant philosophical trends: the obsession with answering the skeptic, the flight from (...) realism, and the debate between naturalism and anti-naturalism. THE WADSWORTH PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS SERIES (under the general editorship of Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University) presents readers with concise, timely, and insightful introductions to a variety of traditional and contemporary philosophical subjects. With this series, students of philosophy will be able to discover the richness of philosophical inquiry across a wide array of concepts, including hallmark philosophical themes and themes typically underrepresented in mainstream philosophy publishing. Written by a distinguished list of scholars who have garnered particular recognition for their excellence in teaching, this series presents the vast sweep of today's philosophical exploration in highly accessible and affordable volumes. These books will prove valuable to philosophy teachers and their students as well as to other readers who share a general interest in philosophy. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Citizenship presents two faces. Within a political community it stands for inclusion and universalism, but to outsiders, citizenship means exclusion. Because these aspects of citizenship appear spatially and jurisdictionally separate, they are usually regarded as complementary. In fact, the inclusionary and exclusionary dimensions of citizenship dramatically collide within the territory of the nation-state, creating multiple contradictions when it comes to the class of people the law calls aliens--transnational migrants with a status short of full citizenship. Examining alienage and alienage law (...) in all of its complexities, The Citizen and the Alien explores the dilemmas of inclusion and exclusion inherent in the practices and institutions of citizenship in liberal democratic societies, especially the United States. In doing so, it offers an important new perspective on the changing meaning of citizenship in a world of highly porous borders and increasing transmigration. As a particular form of noncitizenship, alienage represents a powerful lens through which to examine the meaning of citizenship itself, argues Linda Bosniak. She uses alienage to examine the promises and limits of the "equal citizenship" ideal that animates many constitutional democracies. In the process, she shows how core features of globalization serve to shape the structure of legal and social relationships at the very heart of national societies. (shrink)

Mathematical logic is a branch of mathematics that takes axiom systems and mathematical proofs as its objects of study. This book shows how it can also provide a foundation for the development of information science and technology. The first five chapters systematically present the core topics of classical mathematical logic, including the syntax and models of first-order languages, formal inference systems, computability and representability, and Gödel’s theorems. The last five chapters present extensions and developments of classical mathematical logic, particularly the (...) concepts of version sequences of formal theories and their limits, the system of revision calculus, proschemes (formal descriptions of proof methods and strategies) and their properties, and the theory of inductive inference. All of these themes contribute to a formal theory of axiomatization and its application to the process of developing information technology and scientific theories. The book also describes the paradigm of three kinds of language environments for theories and it presents the basic properties required of a meta-language environment. Finally, the book brings these themes together by describing a workflow for scientific research in the information era in which formal methods, interactive software and human invention are all used to their advantage. The second edition of the book includes major revisions on the proof of the completeness theorem of the Gentzen system and new contents on the logic of scientific discovery, R-calculus without cut, and the operational semantics of program debugging. This book represents a valuable reference for graduate and undergraduate students and researchers in mathematics, information science and technology, and other relevant areas of natural sciences. Its first five chapters serve as an undergraduate text in mathematical logic and the last five chapters are addressed to graduate students in relevant disciplines. (shrink)

"First Published in 1992, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.".

Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years, geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as feminist recognition of the differences between women, their diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist and postmodern debates. Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the wide field of issues (...) that have been addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation, although the links between different spatial scales are also emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between the public and private spheres and their association with men and women respectively has been a crucial part of the social construction of gendered differences and its establishment, maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the possibilities of doing feminist research. It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology. (shrink)

Knowledge has almost always been treated as good, better than mere true belief, but it is remarkably difficult to explain what it is about knowledge that makes it better. I call this “the value problem.” I have previously argued that most forms of reliabilism cannot handle the value problem. In this article I argue that the value problem is more general than a problem for reliabilism, infecting a host of different theories, including some that are internalist. An additional problem is (...) that not all instances of true belief seem to be good on balance, so even if a given instance of knowing p is better than merely truly believing p, not all instances of knowing will be good enough to explain why knowledge has received so much attention in the history of philosophy. The article aims to answer two questions: What makes knowingp better than merely truly believing p? The answer involves an exploration of the connection between believing and the agency of the knower. Knowing is an act in which the knower gets credit for achieving truth. What makes some instances of knowing good enough to make the investigation of knowledge worthy of so much attention? The answer involves the connection between the good of believing truths of certain kinds and a good life. In the best kinds of knowing, the knower not only gets credit for getting the truth but also gets credit for getting a desirable truth. The kind of value that makes knowledge a fitting object of extensive philosophical inquiry is not independent of moral value and the wider values of a good life. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper outlines three conceptions of the relationship between normative and empirical business ethics, views we refer to asparallel, symbiotic, andintegrative. Parallelism rejects efforts to link normative and empirical inquiry, for both conceptual and practical reasons. The symbiotic position supports a practical relationship in which normative and/or empirical business ethics rely on each other for guidance in setting agenda or in applying the results of their conceptually and methodologically distinct inquiries. Theoretical integration countenances a deeper merging ofprima faciedistinct forms of (...) inquiry, involving alterations or combinations of theory, metatheoretical assumptions, and methodology. This paper explicates these positions, summarizes arguments for and against each, and considers their implications for the future of business ethics research. (shrink)

Kraus, O. Biographical sketch of Franz Brentano.--Stumpf, C. Reminiscences of Franz Brentano.--Husserl, E. Reminiscences of Franz Brentano.--Gilson, E. Brentano's interpretation of medieval philosophy.--Gilson, L. Franz Brentano on science and philosophy.--Titchener, E. B. Brentano and Wundt: empirical and experimental psychology.--Chisholm, R. M. Brentano's descriptive psychology.--De Boer, T. The descriptive method of Franz Brentano.--Spiegelberg, H. Intention and intentionality in the scholastics, Brentano and Husserl.--Marras, A. Scholastic roots of Brentano's conception of intentionality.--Chisholm, R. M. Intentional inexistence.--McAlister, L. L. Chisholm and Brentano on intentionality.--Chisholm, (...) R. M. Brentano's theory of correct and incorrect emotion.--Moore, G. E. Review of Franz Brentano's The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong.--Franks, G. Was G. E. Moore mistaken about Brentano?--Kotarbinski, T. Franz Brentano as reist.--Terrell, D.B. Brentano's argument for reismus.--Bergman, H. Brentano's theory of induction.--Kraus, O. Toward a phenomenognosy of time consciousness. (shrink)

Senior managers are important to the successful management of ethics in organizations. Therefore, their perceptions of organizational ethics are important. In this study, we propose that senior managers are likely to have a more positive perception of organizational ethics than lower level employees do largely because of their managerial role and their corresponding identification with the organization and need to protect the organization’s image as well as their own identity. By contrast, lower level employees are more likely to be cynical (...) about the organization’s ethics. In order to compare senior managers’ and lower level employees’ perceptions of ethics in the organization, we surveyed randomly selected senior managers and lower level employees in three firms. We found that perceptions of ethics in the organization differed predictably across levels, with senior managers’ perceptions being significantly more positive and lower level employees’ perceptions being more negative. Implications for practice and research are discussed. (shrink)

This Handbook is guided by the founding father of Cognitive Semantics, Leonard Talmy, and edited by Fuyin Thomas Li, Founding Editor of the journal Cognitive Semantics. It includes numerous contributions from some of the field's most well-regarded researchers and it aims to provide the most comprehensive coverage of the field to date. Beginning with an encompassive taxonomy of the field, it addresses such essential theories as frame semantics, embodied semantics, simulation semantics, and a natural semantic metalanguage; such basic concepts as (...) Figure/Ground semantics, event structure, and open/closed-class conceptualizations; and such specific semantic phenomena as possession, degree, and ideophonicity. It further provides guidelines to data collection, quantitative methods, and person-oriented methodologies. Last but not least, it contains the latest frontier: Targeting in Language. (shrink)

Every day, in many situations, we use expressions which seem only vaguely to provide us with information. The weather forecaster tells us that "some showers are likely in Northern regions during the night", a statement which is vague with respect to number of showers, location, and time. Yet such messages are informative, and often it is not possible for the producer of the message to be more precise. A tutor tells his students that "only a few students fail their exams (...) outright". This does not give a precise incidence. Yet it might be equally misleading to do so. For example, to say that 12% failed outright last year says nothing about other years, while to say an average of 8% over the last five years says nothing about variability. We argue that a precise, numerical statement can be sometimes more misleading in reality than a vague statement. Many researchers in psychology have attempted to capture the meaning of quantities by relating them to scales of quantity. The book explores this idea in detail and shows with original studies how these expressions also serve to control attention and to convey information about the expectations held by those involved in the communication. The book works towards a psychological theory of the meaning of quantifiers and similarly vague terms. New links are drawn between formal theories of quantification and psychological experimentation. (shrink)

Sociopaths are “outstanding” members of society in two senses: politically, they draw our attention because of the inordinate amount of crime they commit, and psychologically, they hold our fascination because most ofus cannot fathom the cold, detached way they repeatedly harm and manipulate others. Proximate explanations from behavior genetics, child development, personality theory, learning theory, and social psychology describe a complex interaction of genetic and physiological risk factors with demographic and micro environmental variables that predispose a portion of the population (...) to chronic antisocial behavior. More recent, evolutionary and game theoretic models have tried to present an ultimate explanation of sociopathy as the expression of a frequency-dependent life strategy which is selected, in dynamic equilibrium, in response to certain varying environmental circumstances. This paper tries to integrate the proximate, developmental models with the ultimate, evolutionary ones, suggesting that two developmentally different etiologies of sociopathy emerge from two different evolutionary mechanisms. Social strategies for minimizing the incidence of sociopathic behavior in modern society should consider the two different etiologies and the factors that contribute to them. (shrink)

Disaster response is a highly collaborative and critical process that requires the involvement of multiple emergency responders (ERs), ideally working together under a unified command, to enable a rapid and effective operational response. Following the 9/11 and 11/13 terrorist attacks and the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it is apparent that inadequate communication and a lack of interoperability among the ERs engaged on-site can adversely affect disaster response efforts. Within this context, we present a scenario-based terrorism case study to (...) highlight the challenges of operational disaster command and response. In this article, which is based on the French emergency response doctrine, we outline a semantics-based common operational command system that is designed to guarantee an efficient information flow among ERs. Our focus is on offering to all ERs, a real-time operational picture of the situation in order to enable multilevel coordination among firefighters, police, healthcare units, public authorities, and other stakeholders. Our approach consolidates information to promote timely sharing of data among ERs. The proposed system is based on an ontology that has been developed to represent the different types of knowledge on the part of ERs, providing a shared vocabulary that covers a variety of interoperability concerns. (shrink)

This volume brings together for the first time the highly influential essays, many of them classics, of one of the most prominent scholars in social philosophy and feminist theory. These essays provide a compelling view of many of the major trends in social theory over the past fifteen years—trends that Linda Nicholson herself helped to shape. The Play of Reason examines the legacies of modernity in contemporary political, social, and feminist thought and the unraveling of these legacies in postmodern (...) times. Linda Nicholson first focuses on the tension in modern social theory between attempts to recognize change and diversity and struggles to capture such change in overarching frameworks of meaning and value. She illuminates the consequences of these conflicting tendencies in relation to Marxism, feminist theory, and classical liberal accounts of the family and the state. Nicholson then asks how theory and the resolution of difference are possible after such overarching frameworks are abandoned. She shows how a pragmatic understanding of theory answers widespread fears about relativism. The Play of Reason is a powerful demonstration of a politically engaged social theory. (shrink)

This book provides an accessible comprehensive exploration of phenomenological theory and research methods and is geared specifically to the needs of therapists ...

Linda Morrison brings the voices and issues of a little-known, complex social movement to the attention of sociologists, mental health professionals, and the general public. The members of this social movement work to gain voice for their own experience, to raise consciousness of injustice and inequality, to expose the darker side of psychiatry, and to promote alternatives for people in emotional distress. Talking Back to Psychiatry explores the movement's history, its complex membership, its strategies and goals, and the varied (...) response it has received from psychiatry, policy makers, and the public at large. (shrink)

Heterogeneous institutional investors' shareholding preferences have been driven to change by the deepening of ESG investment philosophy. Therefore, we examine the impact of corporate ESG performance on institutional investors' shareholding preferences and its mechanism of action. We conduct mixed OLS and mediation effect tests using data on ESG responsibility scores and institutional investors' shareholding ratios of A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2020 as samples. We find that corporate ESG performance can significantly and robustly increase institutional investors' shareholdings; (...) the mediation effect analysis shows that overall corporate ESG performance contributes to increases in corporate book and market values, thus encouraging institutional investors to increase their shareholdings. The heterogeneity analysis shows that independent institutional investors attach more importance to corporate ESG responsibility performance, and long-term institutional investors attach more importance to corporate environmental performance; moreover, institutional investors have more significant ESG shareholding preferences for Chinese SOEs. Our study can strengthen the encouragement of institutional investors to integrate ESG investment concepts from multiple perspectives, such as research and analysis, portfolio management, risk control, and due diligence management, to design and develop targeted ESG investment tools, give full play to the role of shareholders and guide the sound development of listed companies from the perspective of investment strategy objectives. (shrink)

In December 1990, an empirical study assessing hospital ethics committee (HEC) success was completed. Success was measured in terms of the number of interventions undertaken by the committees in four functional areas: education, guidelines development, prospective and retrospective case review. Some commonly quoted success determinants, such as multidisciplinarity, physician chairpersons, and a high institutional status of the chairperson were found not to foster success; the latter two, actually decreased committee success.

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski here explains and defends the idea that the God of the monotheistic religions does not only know all objective facts, but he also perfectly grasps the conscious states of all conscious beings from their own point of view. She calls that property omnisubjectivity. God not only knows that you are in pain, for instance, but is present in your pain, grasping your pain the way you grasp it. The same point applies to every feeling, every belief, (...) every thought, every desire you have. It also applies to the conscious states of animals. Zagzebski begins with an account of what subjectivity is and why it differs from anything in the objective world, then argues that omnisubjectivity is entailed by divine omniscience and omnipresence, divine love and justice, and practices of prayer. She offers three models of how omnisubjectivity is possible: the empathy model, the perceptual model, and panentheism. She answers objections that it is incompatible with other attributes such as timelessness, immutability, impassibility, divine goodness, divine holiness, and infinity. She extends the account of omnisubjectivity to the divine grasp of possible but non-actual subjective states, arguing that God grasps all possible subjective states of all possible conscious beings in his imagination. She then applies the conclusions of the book to the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Many arguments in the book apply to all the monotheistic religions and some arguments apply to monotheistic Hinduism. The book concludes with the claim that subjectivity is primary in the universe. God is intrinsically subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Objectivity is being from the outside viewpoint, and it exists only relative to the created world. (shrink)

This paper argues that an emotion is a state of affectively perceiving its intentional object as falling under a “thick affective concept” A, a concept that combines cognitive and affective aspects in a way that cannot be pulled apart. For example, in a state of pity an object is seen as pitiful, where to see something as pitiful is to be in a state that is both cognitive and affective. One way of expressing an emotion is to assert that the (...) intentional object of the emotion falls under the thick affective concept distinctive of the emotion. I argue that the most basic kind of moral judgment is in this category. It has the form “That is A” (pitiful, contemptible, rude, etc.). Such judgments combine the features of cognitivism and motivational judgment internalism, an advantage that explains why we find moral weakness problematic in spite of its ubiquity. I then outline a process I call “thinning” the judgment, which explains how moral strength, weakness, and apathy arise. I argue that this process is necessary for moral reasoning and communication, in spite of its disadvantage in disengaging the agent's motivating emotion from the judgment. (shrink)

This volume is the first collection of original essays on the related issues of gender and feminism approached phenomenologically.

Global climate change threatens the health, economic prospects, and basic food and water sources of people. A wide range of changes in household energy behaviour is needed to realise a sustainable energy transition. We propose a general framework to understand and encourage sustainable energy behaviours, comprising four key issues. First, we need to identify which behaviours need to be changed. A sustainable energy transition involves changes in a wide range of energy behaviours, including the adoption of sustainable energy sources and (...) energy-efficient technology, investments in energy efficiency measures in buildings, and changes in direct and indirect energy use behaviour. Second, we need to understand which factors underlie these different types of sustainable energy behaviours. We discuss three main factors that influence sustainable energy behaviours: knowledge, motivations, and contextual factors. Third, we need to test the effects of interventions aimed to promote sustainable energy behaviours. Interventions can be aimed at changing the actual costs and benefits of behaviour, or at changing people’s perceptions and evaluations of different costs and benefits of behavioural options. Fourth, it is important to understand which factors affect the acceptability of energy policies and energy systems changes. We discuss important findings from psychological studies on these four topics, and propose a research agenda to further explore these topics. We emphasise the need of an integrated approach in studying the human dimensions of a sustainable energy transition that increases our understanding of which general factors affect a wide range of energy behaviours as well as the acceptability of different energy policies and energy system changes. (shrink)